


Under the Eyes of Three Gods

by orphan_account



Series: Forged in Fires [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, References to Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Nothing in life is simple, Mister Stark.”She was a stranger to him.*"We survive and go on, but death is always there and always waiting.”“Why hasn’t he come for you, then?”“We aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”
Relationships: Peter Parker & Doran Martell, Peter Parker & Jon Snow, Peter Parker & Oberyn Martell, Peter Parker & Sansa Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Forged in Fires [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731361
Kudos: 8





	1. The Lord of Light

Tony was raised Catholic. He didn’t keep the faith, not really, but he had hoped to raise Morgan in it so she knew the references, knew the traditions, and had some connection to her grandmother. He had thought about that a lot, in that mineshaft, that Pepper might not have continued taking her to Mass, or allowed her to take her First Communion. Coming home and seeing his little girl asleep in her bed had done his heart well, had soothed some of the aches from his weeks in captivity.

Pepper filled him in, told him of Loki’s disappearance for several weeks, only to come back with her and Jon Snow, and that she had put her in a caretaker role over Morgan, who loved her dearly. His silence, then, put his daughter longer in the company of a killer. He would have to, however, make good on his promises to Loki. Loki, seeking some form of redemption, had sought him out in order to assist in defending Earth as the new home to the remains of the Asgardian people. He had met Tony’s condition – the (relatively) safe return of Petra Parker to New York.

Tony woke stiff and sore. So long ignoring the pain in order to get through the next day and the moment he knew rest his body knew protest like it had not before. He stretched, getting up to investigate noises from the kitchen. Morgan was likely up, if he had to guess. She was an early riser, after all. Someone would need to watch her.

Petra and Jon already had that handled. Jon was sitting next to Morgan and talking with Petra while Morgan colored.

“Why do you always call me Jaehaerys?”

“Would you rather I did not?”

Jon was upfront in most things, if Tony had to guess by the way he tilted his head. “Why?”

Petra smiled. “You learn quickly, Jon Snow.” She shifted what she had been cooking to a pan, starting to cook for the small group. There was excess, likely meant for himself and Pepper. A considerate action. “I call you Jaehaerys because it is one of your names. It is not uncommon to carry multiple names. Daenaerys was the Khaleesi, was mhysa, and was the Breaker of Chains. I have carried multiple names over my life.

“You are Jon Snow, you are the adopted son of Ned Stark, but you are also Jaehaerys Taragaryen, the last trueborn child of Rhaegar Targaryen and the very best of our line.”

“I have never been more than a bastard.”

“And you have always been more than a bastard.”

“Hey,” Tony was a little tired of being ignored, despite whatever this family drama was. “Little one here.”

“The question of Jon’s birth is not a vulgarity. Plenty of men father bastards.” She looked to him. “But you are not a bastard, despite your upbringing. You were legitimate son of the Crown Prince.”

“But I am and always have been Jon Snow. And now we are in a world where the Targaryen name means nothing, where the words don’t say anything about us but are just a threat.”

“Jon, the words have always been a threat. ‘Fire and blood’ was a mantra of conquest and a promise of a threat, regardless.”

Tony was still so tired, the fatigue went deep, and for all his intelligence he was missing too much information to keep up and he was too tired to fill in the gaps based on clues. “Can we talk about something else? Please?”

Petra straightened from where she was talking with Jon. “I will call you Jon, if that is what you wish.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled at him, and it was warm. Parental even, for all the kid seemed slightly uncomfortable being on the receiving end of it.

“What topic would you propose, Mister Stark?” Petra was looking towards him now, and once more he felt like she was playing cards with him without properly dealing him in. It felt like the years of Sunday School, where he would try to answer the questions, but he had so many of his own questions that he never put the pieces together right.

“Anything but whatever weird history you’re covering.”

*

The Lord of Light was, in her opinion, just the fear men held for death. He pulled people from the grasps of death, but never quite the same. That people so willingly left behind pieces of their self in order to evade death, she found herself watching the fires the Red Woman stared into so often with a hint of disdain. She saw nothing in the fire, just felt the warmth in her skin.

“You are skeptical of our Lord’s role in the war.”

“The only gods that watch for war are gods of death, as they are the ones who see their work increase in the course of it.”

She and Melisandre never got along, not once in all the time they knew each other. In that, she found a friend in Davos Seaworth; the Onion Knight was rather bright, in his own ways, and he took to literature privately. A man who could read, and who was willing, in the aftermath, to talk about it with some others.

*

FRIDAY told him she had notified Rhodey of his safe return. Rhodey’s injuries in Germany had left him in enough of a state he had not gone out in the Iron Patriot barring certain types of emergencies. He had retired, and he had liked it, and he had kept in better touch with Tony in that time than he had while he was still in the military.

He had travelled towards the Compound once he got word and was to join them that evening. Petra was dismissed for the day so Tony could spend the day with Pepper and Morgan, so he could greet his friend and not have to look her in the eye and know what it looked like when she thrust a knife into a man’s throat.

God, he was considering confession, and the last time he had even thought of going was just after his mother died.

“Tony, what’s bothering you?” Pepper had noticed soon after getting up that something was wrong. “Let me help.”

“I’ve just gotta talk things out with Petra. It’s a thing, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

He wondered if May knew, if May was familiar with her niece’s ability. 

*

In the end, the Lord of Light is as useless to her as the other gods. As the Seven and the Old Gods and the other gods she had met. She and the Lord of Light did not miss one another as they turned their backs on each other. The Lord of Light did not parlay with those who lived so deep in shadow, and her many faces were too far shrouded. Shrouded in her mysteries, in her age, and in the shadows that haunted her dreams and nightmares. They were not meant for one another, and Melisandre’s death separated her from the Lord of Light enough that she left him behind in Westeros.

*

Tony looked into some of the Catholic churches that night, after dinner. The nearby ones, ones he thought may be discreet if he were to attend. He was still not religious, but he wondered if perhaps there could be some assurance in going through the motions, in living it out as his mother had asked him to until the day he could be confirmed. He had made the choice, that day, to eschew the faith.

She had never asked him to continue, but she had always offered him the chance to go with her again. He never resented her for it, but he sometimes wished the guilt were not so potent, so many years later, that he never had.


	2. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Which of your gods has answered your prayers, Lady Sansa?”   
> Sansa stiffened, not liking that Petra had seized control from her. “I do not pray anymore. I told you that.”   
> “When you did, who answered? Why did you stop?”   
> She glared through the tears she was holding back. There was a missive on the table, Petra caught sight of it as she followed Sansa’s pacing through the solar. “I stopped praying because the only god who ever answers is the Stranger.”

He opens his lab back up, her space open to her now as well. She joins him at his request, and her gown displays status and power in that it makes her shoulders appear wider, it highlights what would make her beautiful, and the fabric demands attention for how fine it is, how delicately made and fashionably, durably sewn.

“Kid.”

“I’m no child, Mister Stark.”

He nodded. “I guess you’re right about that.”

There was a cold silence between them. Petra was still standing, whereas he had been sitting at his desk.

“Want to take a seat?”

Petra eyed the chair as though to take it would be to cede the upper hand. As though taking a seat meant changing the field, and she didn’t look to consider that maybe he just wanted her to be comfortable if they were going to be having this conversation. She was still his protégé, if he had anything to say about it. He still wanted her to take over the Avengers, if he could tamper down some of that ferocity from a week prior.

Rhodey had told him he had 30 minutes. Rhodey didn’t know what had happened, but he knew it had disturbed Tony. 30 minutes, he said, was enough to say his piece and talk with her before Rhodey would feel justified in joining the conversation, her comfort be damned. Tony just wanted her to feel safe enough to explain herself.

“Do you make a habit of ignoring people?”

“When they are not getting to the point, yes.” She raised a brow to him, her hand rested on the seat as though she was mocking him. “When people see fit to waste my time, it is usually because they have something planned. Tell me, Mister Stark. What is it you have planned for me?

“A confession? Imprisonment for the lives of those in the mine? Or is it simple curiosity that has you watching my every move as though I carried a constant weapon on my person?”

“Not everything has to be eight layers of mystery, kid, I just want to talk to you about the other night.”

“Then talk away.” She lifted her hand from the chair, placed it to the side of her face, her elbow meeting the top of the other hand. She was playing him, he realized, playing him against himself. She did not correct him, this time. Did not say she wasn’t a child. Instead, she took the moniker and, if he had to guess, cataloged it into a series of notes only she knew the purpose of.

“You killed people. Don’t you realize that? Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Men die all the time, Mister Stark.” She could have fooled him, if not for the slight tightening at the corners of her lips. He hated this. She had once been an open book and now he had to read her like he read an enemy, looking for any sign of her true meaning, her true intent, buried underneath her subterfuge and obfuscation. “And had someone not taken it upon themselves to pull you from that cave, to look somewhere else, you may have died down there.

“Your people are all looking for a group. Certainly, now some entertain the idea that perhaps all the Avengers are being held separately, but they still cling to the hope that they are right. That the solution is a simple one.

“Nothing in life is simple, Mister Stark.”

She was a stranger to him.

*

Doran had been entertaining enough in his discussions of the Faith of the Seven, but it was Sansa Stark she found the most fascinating.

“You do not pray before the battle, My Lady?”

“I have not prayed in a long time.” She was staring into the fire. Everyone seemed to look for answers in flames, but all she ever found in them was solace and distraction. “Did you know the plans for Joffrey? When you asked me to leave with you, to come to Dorne, did you know?”

“I had suspicions. I hoped taking you to Dorne would shield you from accusations of Kingslaying and kinslaying.”

“It didn’t.”

“No, it did not.” She met Sansa’s eyes, “But we managed to smuggle you back North, to give you over to the Manderlys.”

“They were ordered…” she drifted off. “The Boltons thought something like that might come to pass. They were inspecting ships at White Harbor, and when they found me they ordered me into their custody. You didn’t protect me like you thought.”

The Boltons. Damned to their own hells, each and every one of them. “Lady Sansa, if I had known-“

“What? What would you have done if you had known?” She shook her head, her anger palpable. “You couldn’t have changed it, and you couldn’t have kept me in Dorne, so what then? Ship me off to Essos, where my sister was? Send me to that damned temple they say you used to live in, with that damn _cult_ that serves your death god?”

“Which of your gods has answered your prayers, Lady Sansa?”

Sansa stiffened, not liking that Petra had seized control from her. “I do not pray anymore. I told you that.”

“When you did, who answered? Why did you stop?”

She glared through the tears she was holding back. There was a missive on the table, Petra caught sight of it as she followed Sansa’s pacing through the solar. “I stopped praying because the only god who ever answers is the Stranger.”

“And the Stranger is a death god, one of the many faces worn by my god.” Petra remained very still, as she would with a wounded animal. Sansa was still vulnerable, and vulnerability would lead to further eruptions if she was not careful. “The Stranger answers prayers because death can walk among us more surely than any aspect of another god. Life is taken for granted, and we run from death. We survive and go on, but death is always there and always waiting.”

“Why hasn’t he come for you, then?”

“We aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”

Sansa very nearly laughed at that. “You outlive and outlast everything. Every war that tears through the land, every mad King. Lord Varys once told me the title of Queen Mother was more important that of the Queen, because you were the one to rule the Targaryens while they ruled he rest of us. If you had so much power, so much sway, then answer me one question. 

“Why didn’t you come for Jon?”

“But I did.”

There was confusion but for a moment and then Sansa nodded. “Oberyn Martell, father of so many bastards, did not foster Jon out of kindness, did he?”

“No. He did not. Your father had hoped I would find a way to protect Rhaegar’s last living progeny from afar, and when the time came and I heard the tension that was in your family because of Jon’s cover I knew I could help if I had Jon brought to Dorne. Doing so myself would have called attention to him that your father and I did not want, but Oberyn was willing to play a part in the scheme.”

There was more to it, they both knew it, but did not bother with the expectation that Petra would reveal any more than was necessary. It was not how she was known, and Sansa had learned the art of survival from her, after all. Learned to hide everything including fear in the back of her throat so that it might come out in her breath but not in her words or her face.

*

Rhodey joined them when they were staring at one another, at an impasse. He watched Petra with the same kind of look he got when he met a new enhanced individual. If anyone had a knack for spotting someone with the ability and wherewithal to kill a man, Rhodey was it. Rhodey, who could pick malintent out from capability in a minute. That he didn’t threaten her should have put Tony at ease, because it meant he didn’t think her out to kill him, but it only made him more tense.

Because she was either very good at hiding it, or she only killed when she meant to. And if she only killed when she meant to, then there was a wide variety of options that did not meet the line of murder that she could just as easily have traipsed through and around. Human cruelty, after all, was one of the broadest forms of human creativity Tony had ever witnessed.

Rhodey joined their impasse. He stood between them and watched them.

*

Jon only agreed to join her in the face of his exile. His family meant everything to him, and they were secure while he was cast from the Seven Kingdoms. As such, she was the only family left to him. He asked after their histories, after people he had heard about, Kings and Princes. She told him stories of children and aunts and uncles he never knew, some long dead. She told him of the humans that made those stories, too far flung from their great deeds for them to mean anything to her. Not when she had known them as small children, all of them learning in their turn how the world around them operated, how it worked. All of them learning, in their time, how to play the game that surrounded them.

He asked her why she never took to the Faith of the Seven. Loki stood by as they packed their things left in Winterfell, things they left behind in the course of the journey south, but which they would take with them to her world.

“Because it is already compliant with my faith. And if I were to convert to it, it would only be a complication of the beliefs I already had. And besides, I’ve never held with all that nonsense about hell.

“People are human, and an individual can be capable of both great kindness and great cruelty. Hell damns everyone, if it exists.

“No, I’m far more comfortable in the finality of death.”

*

Rhodey broke the silence. “If you’re not going to get your shit together, then the two of you can at least work out the plan of action for finding the other missings.”

Petra straightened on hearing that, became an authority figure once again. “We need to find the Captain and his Sergeant, first.”

“Don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but they’re the very last people I ever want to see again, kid.” Tony brought up a hand, pointed to her. “And if that was a passive-aggressive suggestion, then you really aren’t as adult as you want to pretend you are.”

Rhodey looked between them. “I don’t know Tony, I think she’s onto something.

“You never did reconcile with the others before these disappearances.”

Petra has a brow raised and is looking at Tony, for once looking less than aggressive. “I have witnessed and lived through many a war. And you need leaders for war; you may not win over the others, even after retrieving them. Instead, you need someone they _will_ listen to.”

She was almost maternal in the delivery of her explanation, like a mother counseling her son. “Why Barnes? What do we need Barnes for?”

Rhodey looked to Petra to take that one. “Because the Captain will not follow you with out concessions towards the safety of his Sergeant. After making those concessions, however, you hold the power. He is, in some senses a hostage under your rule.”

Rhodey let out a low whistle. “Cutthroat.”

“Careful.” She raised a brow. “An insurance policy means that when the Captain has designs on expanding his influence and control, you control him in turn.”

“Why would you want to control him?” Tony was wrapped in the planning. “Why not just try for winning the loyalty?”

“His loyalty is question,” Petra was fully in her element as she met the planning head on. She had a head for this like Tony had not seen in a long time, if he had ever seen someone with a head as geared towards this type of planning. “His loyalty will always be question. As such, you hold his sergeant as hostage. Certainly, you do not need to mistreat him.

“I certainly was never mistreated during my time as a prisoner-hostage in Dorne, though the situations are not entirely analogous.”

Rhodey bit at that. “You were a hostage?”

“A life to prevent vengeance for a death.” She was offhand about it, her mind still working on planning towards their retrieval missions. Rhodey watched as she shifted with a brutal efficiency. “We should ensure the Captain stays here, as does anyone else we gather.

“Concentrate the target into one location, as well as our power and ability. Create a localized repertoire of how we can fight from here. No one needs know the extent of ability at our access, but we ought to know.”

The planning continued on, and when Tony went to sleep that night, he realized that it had been more of a war council.


	3. The Many-Faced God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t make this easy.”   
> “I cannot read minds. You will have to either ask questions or make statements. A conversation takes two people, typically.”   
> “You’ve gotten good at saying a lot of nothing.”

She was sitting in his lab, waiting for him on his request. She was still very attentive to the needs Morgan had, and she came to their planning with good ideas and thorough planning. He had noticed she had three gowns, and two sets of the leather wear that functioned in double as her armor. He had no idea what to expect, as she and Jon had come with a single trunk of belongings each and neither seemed inclined to join the broader modern world.

“Petra.”

“Anthony.”

Anytime they began to talk, he did not know what to start with. She seemed inclined to let him lead, but that lead was easily revoked, pulled back.

“You don’t make this easy.”

“I cannot read minds. You will have to either ask questions or make statements. A conversation takes two people, typically.”

“You’ve gotten good at saying a lot of nothing.”

“I did not survive the Court of my grandson without being able to maneuver around him.” She looked at Tony, and those eyes had all the strategy in them he had seen in the last few weeks. “I think, you may actually do it this time, though.”

“Do what?”

“Ask what has been bothering you. The question you keep trying to dig around, to trick me into.”

Fuck it. “What happened to you?”

“Men. The egos of great men are fearsome things.”

*

When Jon came to Dorne, he was all of eleven years and was shy as could be. When they met, he hadn’t been able to look her in the eye. When she had first tried to create some goodwill, he had been nervous, looked at her gift as though it may come back to hurt him.

She had sat him down, and kept her opinions on his behavior (unbecoming for the son of a prince, for the true heir of the Throne despite the stag sitting it now) to herself. She served the warm, honeyed teas she had become fond of in Dorne to the boy, warning him off of the excesses other men made habit of. He had listened to her, and then they had sat in silence.

When he had left, he had thanked her for her company, and a plan started forming. Pulling Oberyn aside, she made a request of him.

*

“The egos of great men, huh?”

Petra sat back into her chair, her eyes on Tony as she made to reply. “I never sat the Throne, not myself, but I counseled the men who did. And when those men saw themselves as second only to the gods, you had to be careful.

“I had one grandson who made rather a habit of burning people alive. Another before him, Aerion, drank wildfire and my, did the entire court breathe a sigh of relief that his brother would be taking the throne at that.”

“You’ve lived quite the life.” Tony poured two mugs of coffee.

“And I’ve made my peace with my lot in life.” Petra took the offered mug as Tony sat across from her.

“Why were you so hostile, why have you been dodging my questions?”

Time was Petra couldn’t look him in the eye, and now she held his eyes with an intensity that continued to make him uncomfortable. “Because you were dodging them yourself. And if you do not trust yourself, I will not offer in hand my own trust.”

“And now you think I trust myself?”

“More than you did when you were first brought back, and understandably so.” If he took those statements and their abruptness as counsel, the kind of counsel she had offered to these grandchildren she had talked about (and he would be getting into that later, but right now he wanted other answers. He had seen weirder, he could put it off for now), it was easier to listen to.

If she was going to be forthcoming, at least on factual matters, he would take it as far as he could.

“How’d you set the fire?”

She lifted a hand, and Tony watched in fascination as the skin started to flicker and glow before fire caught in the air around it. There was no scent of burning flesh, just the barest scent of blood, though he could see the flesh reacting to the flames. When they receded, the skin was pink and angry, inflamed, but not burnt. “I’ve learned to use it effectively, learned the limits, and learned not to prolong the time on my skin. Flicking it at something that would catch was a simple matter.

“I was entirely serious in my assessment. We need to know what everyone in our makeshift force is able to do. I am willing to share my relevant talents and abilities in the spirit of this.”

“What aren’t you willing to share, then?”

Petra did not dignify that with an answer. He would have to try a different tactic.

“Why did you set the fire?”

*

Oberyn played into her game, and in a few weeks she had at least some trust from the Bastard of Winterfell, who took to telling her stories of his beloved siblings. Family was not only blood, she knew, and one day if she could see her grandson in any sort of happier position, she would gladly consider the Starks within her extended family.

Doran watched the boy carefully as he worked with Trystane and the Master-at-Arms of Sunspear in their sparring lessons. Trystane was a decent mite younger than Jon, but he was taking to the training with the spear quite well.

“He and Arianne would make a good match. Even if you never make your move, he would do well in Dorne.”

“He would. Lord Eddard may balk at matching his bastard so far from his protection, though.”

“A bastard in a kingdom that welcomes them.” Doran was leaning heavily on his walking stick. “I hear wolves and dragons are rather alike – neither likes to be alone.”

*

“Survival.”

Tony nodded. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

They stayed in silence, sipping at their coffee quietly. “You’re going to need more clothes than three gowns and some… whatever those other clothes are. You’re more than welcome to go into the city for them, and I can help to pay for them.”

“Your wife has kindly been paying Jon and I for our work – whatever we need we will pay for.”

“You _need_ new clothes.”

“No, I don’t think we do.” She looked at the clothing Tony wore. “We wear what is practical to us. And what is practical to us are the garments we brought with us.”

“No one dresses like that, kid. Not on the regular.” Tony gestured to the gown she was wearing, one of thick brocaded fabric and worn over layers of a corset, a slip, and some petticoats to protect the outer garment from the skin. “You can wear that as often as you want, but please at least get some jeans, or something more modern. We’ve got some training gear being made up for the two of you.”

“You intend to bring Jon into our plans?”

“He’s a good fighter, we could use him.”

“He’s also an excellent commander and can plan decently well.” She looked into her mug, which now Tony saw was nearly empty. “I would say that he is an excellent addition to our ranks.”

“Our ranks?” Tony laughed. Things were easing up a bit, even if he could still feel that discomfort clawing at his chest and that distrust telling him she was hiding things. “You make it sound like a military.”

“Habit, I’m afraid.” She met his eyes again, and there was something of that fire from earlier flicking through the hazel. Tony was sure he imagined it, but it still planted further discomfort in him. “And even so, isn’t that, in many ways, what the Avengers have always been?”

*  
When she met Jon Snow after his time on the Wall, she wondered if she and Doran were wrong. Certainly, Arianne’s strong-headedness before her death would have been well matched to a level-headed young man such as Jon, but he was showing in himself all the Targaryen propensity towards ruling with minimal counsel from the women around him. Certainly, he was only encouraged by Westerosi convention, but Sansa recounting the Battle of the Bastards only lets Petra in on the fact her last grandson has as much of his father and his father’s father, and all the generations of Targaryens before him _in_ him as any of them had.

Ned Stark raised him to be honorable, though, and she gives him credit in how he approaches Sansa after. It is not the Targaryen rage – a rage that she had bit back when he took the Black if only to keep Doran from demanding penance for the slight of setting aside the betrothal to his daughter – for all his frustrations come out in the discussion.

He was King in the North in those moments before he was a brother lied to. That was more than she could say for many a man she had met.

*

"You're so comfortable with all this." 

"With?" 

"Death, armies, fighting. Time was you pulled punches on criminals because you thought they deserved a second chance." 

Her mug found a place on his desk, and she stood with a grace that he envied. He had worked hard for grace himself, and she made it look effortless. "I've found that second chances from the Many-Faced God often entail pain of some kind. You cannot spare everyone the hurt of consequences." 

"The Many-Faced God?" 

Tony had just gotten comfortable going back to church with anything that made a promise of regularity. Religion still made him uncomfortable. 

"Death, Mister Stark. The very thing that warned me and informed my actions. The very thing that was hunting us down in that cave."

Tony shivered at that before he redirected the conversation. They had a Captain and Sergeant to find. 


End file.
